Marine Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland says troops have made strides in winning control of Helmand province from the Taliban. He says the going is slow for U.S. troops training Afghan forces.

September 1, 2009

Reporting from Camp Pendleton - The general in charge of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan said Monday that progress was being made in wresting a key southern province from Taliban control but cautioned that the process was slow and difficult to measure.

Marine Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland also said the Marine Corps was ready to send more troops to Afghanistan if asked by top U.S. officials. "Everything we're doing is preparing to put more forces in theater," Helland said.

The Marines' goal is to train the Afghan security forces to carry the fight to the Taliban. The training is going slowly, Helland said.

Helland is set to retire Friday after 41 years of military service, beginning as an Army enlisted man with the Special Forces in Vietnam. For the last two years he has been the commanding general of 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Force Central Command, with authority over Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Marines have 12,000 troops in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, where Taliban fighters are entrenched and opium poppy fields provide an illegal cash crop that funds the insurgency against the U.S.-backed central government in Kabul, the capital.

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of all U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan, has said that operations in Helmand are key to demonstrating that the U.S. will not quickly leave areas it enters or allow the Taliban to return.

"We need to make Helmand a success," McChrystal said in late July during a videoconference with Washington policymakers. "And we need to make it a public success. A lot of people will watch what we do there."

Helland, a cordial and candid Midwesterner, said his Marines were living beside Afghan soldiers and close to civilian populations, rather than behind guarded outposts. His forces are trying to strengthen ties with villagers in the rural province, he said.

"It's a slow process," he said. "You have to win the confidence [of the Afghans], to provide security. . . . Things appear to be improving -- slowly."

Fifty Marines have been killed in Afghanistan so far in 2009, which has been the deadliest year for U.S. forces since the conflict began in 2001, according to the website icasualties.org. Most of the fatalities were from roadside bombs.

But despite polls indicating that public support for the mission is slipping and signs of growing reluctance in Congress, Helland asserted that pulling U.S. forces out of Afghanistan is not an option until the Afghans are ready to handle the fight against the Taliban.

"As long as there is a foreign enemy that is radical, irresponsible and willing to do anything to cause instability and chaos . . . we need to keep them off-balance, to keep them from coming here," he said.